This invention relates to prerecorded instructional materials and, more particularly, audio or audio-visual presentations of associated terms in dichotic-diotic sequence, and methods of use of the same for associative learning.
Prerecorded materials have been used in teaching many subjects. The organization of the materials often depends upon what is known and not known by the learner. For example, in foreign language teaching, words or phrases in a foreign language are often learned through their association with equivalent words or phrases in the learner's native language. Other associations may be between known words in stimulus-response format to produce combinations with new meanings, as for example, in the learning of word collacations of idiomatic phrases, such as, "sure-enough." For clarity the following descriptions are directed to teaching words and phrases of a foreign language, but it is to be understood that the disclosure is also applicable to other subjects where associative techniques may be used.
Dostert U.S. Pat. No. 2,777,901, issued Jan. 5, 1957, Yamamoto U.S. Pat. No. 4,139,954, issued Feb. 20, 1979, and Meeder U.S. Pat. No. 4,354,841, issued Oct. 19, 1982 each disclose a product and/or method wherein prerecorded phrases in a foreign language are associated with their equivalent phrases in a native language.
Dosert discloses an apparatus for binaural listening wherein recordings and reproductions of foreign and native language phrases may be presented bilaterally, unilaterally, or simultaneously. No prerecorded arrangement is specified, but the learner may adjust the time relation between phrases delivered to separate ears so that the foreign language phrase leads, is simultaneous, or lags in presentation with respect to the correlated known language phrase.
Yamamoto discloses prerecorded phrases that alternate foreign and native language presentations on adjacent magnetic tracks staggered to be associated in a sequential time relation. Intermediate sections of the tape between the staggered phrases contain background sounds to mask low volume sounds that may be maganetically induced from recorded sections on an adjacent track. Recorded sections of the foreign and native language phrases are not opposite to each other in the transverse direction of the tape.
Meeder discloses prerecorded alternating foreign and native related phrases that do not overlap and have intermediate sections with continuous background sound coincident with and substantively related to the respective foreign and native phrases. The prerecorded material is presented through separate tracks of a multi-track tape that may be used on conventional monaural or stereo playback apparatus.
Heretofore there has not been available auditory instructional material using two or more series of related words or phrases whose prerecorded pattern for presentation to the two ears enhances associative learning by providing for the effects of both simultaneous and sequential contiguity in the time relations between the foreign and native words or phrases. Further, prior disclosures do not give the optimal combination of intensity, time relations, and ear of presentation for the foreign and native phrases or verbal stimulus and response coordinated with their visual representations to facilitate associative learning.